My wife and I stayed at Emeralda for three nights in June, 2019 and it was a highlight of our three week trip to Vietnam. The hotel is set on beautiful grounds, with nature all around. It is quiet and peaceful, with beautiful paths for birding around their pools and grounds. The hotel room we stayed in was perfect: a bungalow next to a private pool. Everything in the room was modern and clean and the bed and air conditioning were perfect. The hotel has a very good restaurant on the property with excellent choices for dinner in a relaxed, beautiful atmosphere near their main pool area. There is even an indoor pool with water that was refreshing and perfect for the hot days to relax. The breakfast buffet is excellent with a huge selection of choices. The food was all excellent and fresh. The best part of this hotel is the staff - incredibly helpful and kind. They were available day or night and were always gracious and helpful. I want to particularly highlight the hotel's manager, Einda - she was so kind, so helpful and always smiling in our direction. She is amazing. Also, our guide for our day trip was Dung, an excellent, friendly guide, also connected to the hotel staff. He was knowledgable, with excellent English and so kind and flexible with us. My wife also had a wonderful massage at their Spa. All of this made for a superb, relaxing and enlightening part of our Vietnam trip and we thank everyone at this superb hotel! The best place to stay in Ninh Binh!

Emeralda is a great resort and I would definitely recommend staying here. It’s peaceful, well resourced and has great facilities. Furthermore if home stays are not to your taste then it’s possibly the only option to consider when visiting Ninh Binh.

However what’s worth considering is that the resort is often overrun with children, and all other services it offers are overpriced. We found ourselves paying up to 6 times the price of beer and wine here than any other standard place in Ninh Binh. They also tend to put you off renting motorbikes and offer bicycles instead (which in this heat just is not an option! And if you do want to rent motorbikes, there is a lovely lady just 200 metres away to the left of the resort who will offer them at 200 VND a day, which is the same price as renting a bicycle with the hotel.) Tours with the hotel are also very very expensive. So by all means stay at the resort as it’s a great place but it’s worth doing a bit of research and buying everything else outside the hotel (tours, bikes, drinks etc.)

The Hotel is amazing but the Staff is up of the Standard mainly my colleague Mr Thông, we enjoyed with him the nice locations close to the hotel and we could feel that he loves his job and he is a great photographer. Thanks Thông. Don’t forget to visit the restaurant and the Spa, enjoy it!